Representatives of the opposition Fokus party on Wednesday called on the Constitutional Court to rule as soon as possible on the constitutionality of the law regulating Sunday work, saying it is discriminatory, damaging to small businesses while favouring retail chains, and it should be repealed.

Fokus last year filed a motion requesting the law’s constitutionality test.

The government kept saying the law was being adopted to protect cashiers, but last weekend we saw the fiasco of its application, with cashiers in retail chains working until exhaustion, empty shelves and traffic jams, Fokus president Davor Nadji told the press.

This is not a Sunday work ban for employees but for shops, he said. This law is discriminatory at the expense of small shops and cashiers, while benefitting big retailers, which have enough stores so that at least one can be open every Sunday, he added.

Fokus MP Dario Zurovec, who is also the mayor of Sveta Nedelja, said all towns where Fokus was in power would declare certain Sundays and holidays fair days as last year so that some shops could be open.

The Constitutional Court quashed decisions on the Sunday work ban three times in the past and the reasons it cited apply today also, Fokus MP Damir Bajs said, adding that those reasons are the constitutional right of business owners to free enterprise and equality before the law, a violation of the principle of legal certainty, and that such a law is not necessary to protect workers’ rights.